exhausting weekend

so mike came down this weekend and we decided to be productive.. in the sense that we'd get out of the bars and actually do some stuff relevant to this country's history.. so on saturday we went to dongwasa, a temple with a giant buddha (i didn't include pics because there are some in previous journal entries).. after that we attempted a hike.. we went with some other friends.. i'd like to say that i have hiked a lot during my time here, but it's always been alone, and just for fun.. the people we went with were pretty hardcore and after just a few minutes we were dying so went out own way.. after we were able to take our time as well as some pictures it was a lot more enjoyable.. after our little adventure we met some other people for dinner, but i was barely able to keep my eyes open..

sunday we headed to gyeongju.. (remember again from past entries this is the ancient capital of korea).. i've been here a few times and i really like it there but i hate having to deal with the public transport.. i feel like i spent most of the time on buses.. children's day and buddha's bday are coming up so that's why everything is covered in lanterns.. it sort of made me wish we did this at night..

large tombs in tumuli park - gyeongju

bulguksa temple - gyeongju

mike in bulguksa - gyeongju


palgong mountain - daeguish..

mike checkin something out - palgong


lanterns and temple at dongwasa on palgongsan


blossoms in dongwasa


cutest girl ever! i almost stole her (i'm kicking myself a little bit that i didn't)

dongwasa

so the rest of the weekend was filled with doing as little as possible.. i'm pretty tired today and glad that monday is over... i'm looking forward to some sleep!

another weekend in seoul

last weekend was good. i stayed in daegu for friday night to celebrate the birth of andrea. we went for some drinks and food with some friends and then i had a girly sleepover at her house. i was planning on getting up really early (gasp 9am!) inorder to catch a train to seoul to meet a friend for lunch but that didn't happen. i didn't crawl out of bed until 12:30, and by the time i got home on the subway, showered and packed it was after 3. so i got to seoul just after 5, and since i missed my lunch with jess, met up with mike and some of his friends for some alright mexican food. after that we went to a couple of punk shows which were also alright. sunday we did thai food and yeouido park. the pics for all this are backwards, pretend i did it on purpose as an homage to memento, or that episode of seinfeld.

yeouido park. there was grass here! and not only the fancy grass you can look at in daegu, but grass you can sit down on! i was all over that grass.
yeouido park again.
just before the park where mike fell asleep on the subway. i had to amuse myself by taking pics of him to the delight of the little girls sitting across from us.
so just after the punk show we got to his place, just to find out that he had lost his keys. luckily korea covered in love motels. they're cheap and handy for situations like these. also handy if you're a married man who wants to cheat on your wife, or student who has no place of your own and need to have some 'special time' with your boyfriend/girlfriend. i've stayed in a few and this one wasn't that bad. our school has put mel up in one for the week and hers sounds more like the typical 'love motel' complete with sex chair, mirrored ceilings and a variety of condoms to choose from. usually the parking lots of these places are covered so that wives can't read the license plates on the cars.

mike and one of our favourite korean punks, honggu.
mike and his friend/coworker ben.

all in all a good weekend. this weekend i'm hoping to take it easy and maybe even start some packing! we'll see how that goes.

cheers.

another weekend in the gu

stuck around daegu this weekend and mike came down from seoul. it was his first time here and as he says, "anything less than 10 million people is the country." i had plans to see temples and buddhas but all we ended up doing was going out with my friends for the nights and eating and sleeping during the days. shock me. it was a good weekend all around though. no pics from friday night but we just went to jisan to play poker with some people. as always, i do well and then get bored and go home. poker is not a good investment for me. saturday night we went out for dinner and then to old school (i guess you would call it a sort of foreigner hip hoppy kind of club). here are some of the pics from that night:


mike left, me right.
mike riding jason.

lauren, jason, me.

lauren, me

cass, jason, bret

me, barry, dana

mike

i'm sleepy and am not looking forward to going into work. thankfully it's a somewhat easy work day.

i hope all you suckers enjoyed your long weekend. suckas.

daejon

we decided to get out of town on saturday night. mel, dax, jay and i are pretty burnt out on the Gu. mel had to do some nagging, but i finally got my ass on the train and daejon is only around 40 minutes on the ktx. it's pretty much like any other city in korea, only a bit smaller. the biggest draw was that we don't know anyone there. first, we went to a fabulous sheesha bar. i may go to daejon again just for this bar. it was pretty cheap, we got to sit on the floor with pillows and curtains, and the entire place was lit only by candle light. after we went to a few other clubs (which were terrible, though i saw a shark try to breakdance) and a few other pubs. at around 4 am mel and i were pretty tired so were hoping to catch the first train back. however, daejon is stupid and the train station was locked up. it's the only city i've ever been to that has actually closed it's train station. so, we had to rent a room at a yogwan for a few hours before getting on the train back.

i was pretty tired, but went out this afternoon to get my hair done. strangely 3 of the places i used to go to were closed. i managed to find a new place and my stylist, whose korean name was dong hyeon, insisted that i call him by his english name, 'sexy guy'. he was pretty funny and kept telling me how evil his wife was (his wife was cutting hair at the chair beside me). anyways, he was a little scissor happy, but i tipped him well because he was kind and gave me a mask to protect myself against the yellow dust. that was thoughtful.

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